Look and feel
the Redmi 12 5G is in the house!. These phones have been launched on very old processors like Dimensity 700 & Dimensity 810. But this is the world’s 1st phone & obviously it’s the 1st phone in India too which has Qualcomm Snapdragon 4th Gen 2. When 4th Gen 1 was launched, we were impressed with it & Gen 2 is similar. In fact, it goes 1 step forward. it has 3 variants. 4GB RAM 128GB RAM, 6GB RAM 128GB RAM & even 8GB RAM 256GB RAM. Think about it, there’s a version of 8GB RAM 256GB RAM too. Flatsides, this is the trend these days. All phones have 80% flatsides & then you have the case. It looks like a triple camera setup. It’s of good quality & it has a frosted back. So this looks good. Documentation & what else? It has 22.5W charging but the phone only supports 18W. The adapter is 22.5W USB Type A to Type C charging cable. Alright, that’s about it in the box.
Build Quality
Now let’s look at the phone. It’s flat, shiny & colourful. Oh, this is a glass back! aside. Yes, it is! I think it’s the 1st phone in the Note series that has a glass back but not in the Note series. It has 3 colours, silver, black & blue. Ports & Buttons Speaker, USB Type C, Microphone, SIM card tray on the left, 3.5mm jack on the top & an IR blaster. There’s an IR blaster & a volume rocker on the right. And then there’s a power on button which basically works as a fingerprint sensor. It’s a side mounted fingerprint sensor. There’s a bit of satisfaction. The SIM card tray should have a dedicated SD card, we’ll see. There’s a hybrid SIM card slot with an expansion slot & you can expand it upto 1TB. You can use 2 SIM cards, 1 SD card & 1 SIM card. You get a 90Hz screen & you can feel it. So the swipes & touches are very smooth, that’s what I’d say. And if you play games on medium to high settings like COD Mobile or PUBG, you’ll be able to play at 40FPS which is quite good. And the 90Hz screen helps a lot. There’s another reason for the good performance. It has UFS 2.2 storage type with 128GB variants & LPDDR4X RAM type. It has a 5000mAh battery with 18W charging. Although it has a 22.5W adapter. Let’s talk about OS. It has MIUI 14 which is based on Android 13. We don’t know about the updates yet. There are 3rd party apps but not that many & those are uninstallable. When you set it up, you get a glance which you can un-tick but it won’t come. Sensors It has a side mounted fingerprint sensor & face unlock. They work well. There’s not much to say but all sensors are there. Connectivity It has a 4th Gen 5G SoC. There are 7 bands of support in India. There’s dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi calling, dual band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 & IR Blaster.
display
Inside, there’s a big screen. Again, I don’t think there’s any phone in this price range that gives a 6.79” screen. This one is a 6.79” screen, FHD+, IPS LCD screen. So that’s really nice & as I said, there’s Gorilla Glass protection. If I talk about the bezels, they’re average sized bezels with a 15K price range. And the center punch holes are quite decent, very nice. Look at this, especially the glass back is very nice. Multimedia It has a very nice Full HD display with good viewing angles. It has a good quality IPS display. It has mono speakers but they’re loud & good quality. So it’s very good for multimedia. If you want to do streaming, you can do HD streaming because it has Widevine L1 certification. If I talk about small things, it has SAR value & IP53 certification. So it’s dust & water resistant. It has FM radio & there’s no notification light. It has an updated X61 modem so you get good 5G speeds. So it’s very good for connectivity.
Performance
Let’s talk about the specs. And it’s very important here, especially the processor. This is a 4Nm efficient processor, Qualcomm SD 4th Gen 2. If I talk about the AnTuTu score, it’s 4.5L which is the version 10. So I’d say it’s more powerful than Dimensity 700 or 810. And if I compare it with Qualcomm 695 which is priced at 18-20K, it’s similar. But this is more power efficient as it’s on 6Nm while this is on 4Nm. And you can tell from the performance that it’s absolutely smooth.
Camera
Cameras It has a 50MP camera with 2MP depth macro. It’s a secondary sensor but the primary sensor is 50MP. And there’s an 8MP sensor in the punch hole. These are my first impressions. We haven’t taken many photos yet. But by the time this video goes live, we’ve saved a lot of samples in G-Drive. Do check it out, I’ve given the link in the description. So go & check it out. In normal conditions, all the photos have good colours & good screen tones. But there’s 1 thing, the trend of removing the ultra wide lens is going away. Ultra wide is important. Camera Features It has Portrait Mode, Time Lapse Mode, 50MP native mode. So you can take photos in 50MP resolution. So all those things are there. There are a lot of filters as well. So it has all the standard features that a camera should have. Video Graphics You can shoot 1080p at 30FPS. Alright, this is the Redmi 12 5G. But if you want an all round phone.
Conclusion
But like I said, I really like this phone. Especially because of the performance & power efficiency of the 4th Gen 2. And then the display. Overall, it’s a very good phone in the price range.
